Founder and President
Born to Christian parents, Curt McDaniel received the heritage of a gospel-centered home. His father, Curtis, Sr., fought in the renowned Battle of the Bulge as a PFC light machine gunner with the renowned Company B, 68th Tank Battalion, 6th Armored Division under the command of General George S. Patton, and was one of only 6 men in his company of 60 that escaped alive from the mission that successfully liberated the 101st Airborne Division. In his father’s direct blood line are 2 “Swamp Foxes” that Francis Marion commanded in the American Revolution. His mother “Babs” was born on the “Poindexter Farm,” in Malvern Hill, VA, 57 years after the infamous Battle of Malvern Hill, the final conflict of the “Seven Days Battles” in the Civil War on July 1, 1862. A native of Chesterfield County, Virginia, Curt graduated cum laude from Columbia International University in Columbia, SC (in Bible and Theology), a Master of Divinity from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, MO, and a Doctor of Ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA, concentrating in Evangelism and Church Renewal. In 2009, he earned a PhD in Civic Rhetoric from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, with a concentration in Ciceronian and Augustinian Rhetoric, Communication Ethics, and postmodern philosophy of communication.
Over the course of his 40+ years as a pastor, church planter and founding pastor, teacher, executive pastor, church revitalizer, Bible expositor, Christian professor, interim Senior pastor, ministry consultant, pastoral mentor and author, he has planted and founded 3 churches, revitalized many congregations, and trained and raised up hundreds of church elders and deacons to bolster their congregations’ ministries. He has a passion for expositional preaching and teaching, leadership development (emerging and current), congregational ministry advancement, and personal growth in homiletics, doctrine, leadership, and biblical studies.
In 2016, he founded the Center for Reaching a Post-Christian Culture, utilizing his PhD in Civic Rhetoric and five decades of ministry experience to focus and to write on ministry, preaching, and leadership issues concerning post-Christian culture (www.postchristiancondition.org). Additionally, he is currently an adjunct professor of homiletics (preaching) and a doctoral mentor to students at Columbia Biblical Seminary, the seminary of Columbia International University, in Columbia, SC.
He is the author of When I Need God the Most (Xulon, 2001), God is All My Hope and Stay (Amazon 2016) and co-author with his 2017 deceased wife Karen on the three-book series, Life Brighteners (Waterbrook Press, 2004) Several books and resources covering preaching, leadership, and ministry in a post-Christian conditioned culture and America’s founding ethos in Christian principles are currently in production.
In 2021, God blessed Curt with the marriage to Elizabeth Garrett James (Beth), who also experienced widowhood just one month before him. Both of their previous spouses from long-term marriages died of cancer. Together, they have 4 adult children: Joe (Air Force veteran), Curtis III (PCA Minister and RUF area coordinator), Megan (a director for a major US airline), and Heather (Pediatric Speech Language Pathologist). They are blessed with 7 grandchildren (2 grandsons and 5 granddaughters).
Curt has a passion for landscape gardening (he has 68 roses of 33 different varieties in his landscape) and furniture-making. He loves college football, MLB, and Bichon Frise dogs.